In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, we, the inventors, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. We also grow a smaller number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits, usually to capture recessive traits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of cherry tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘Arvin Bruce’.
During a typical blooming season we isolate as seed parents individual cherry trees by covering them with screen houses. A hive of bees is placed inside each such house, and bouquets to provide pollen from different cherry trees are placed in buckets near the trees approximately every two days for the duration of the bloom. During 2002 one such house containing ‘Glenred’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 12,859) cherry tree was crossed by us in this manner. To pollinate this cherry, we selected bouquets from several sources of cherry trees without keeping specific written details. Upon reaching maturity the fruit from this cherry tree was harvested and the seeds were removed, cracked, stratified and germinated as a group with the label ‘Glenred House’. They were grown as seedlings on their own root in our greenhouse, and upon reaching dormancy transplanted to a cultivated area of our experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif. in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). During the summer of 2008 the claimed variety was selected by us as a single tree from the group of seedlings described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of cherry tree, we asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproductions were true to the original tree in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Colt’ (unpatented) rootstock, upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is most similar to its seed parent, ‘Glenred’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 12,859) cherry, by being self-unfruitful, by blooming during the early season, by having reniform glands, by being productive, and by producing fruit that is full red in skin color, somewhat oblate in shape, moderately firm, sweet, and fairly crack resistant, but is distinguished therefrom by producing cherries that are somewhat larger in size, that are a lighter red in flesh color, that are fully freestone instead of semi-freestone, that ripen about five days earlier, and that have stems that are more strongly attached.
The present variety is also similar to ‘Glenrock’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 15,512) cherry by being self-unfruitful, by blooming during the early season, by having reniform glands, by being productive, and by producing fruit that is full red in skin color, that is partially red in flesh color, that is oblate in shape, that is somewhat freestone in type, that is sweet in flavor, and that has a medium length stem with strong attachment, but is distinguished therefrom by producing cherries that are somewhat larger in size, that are not quite as firm, and that ripen about 10 days earlier.